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EP9 Todd Jones: Yes! You Too Can Reduce Your Property Tax Bill!

After the mortgage, the second highest expense for real estate investors is often property taxes. It might surprise you to know that experts estimate that between 30 and 60 percent of taxable property in the United States is over-assessed, which leads to higher property taxes.

Fighting and winning a battle with your local tax assessor’s office might not be as difficult as you believe. Investors, apparently, do not believe that to be the case as only a small percentage of property owners appeal their assessment. Maybe it is a case of investors having too many other battles to fight in the day to day management of their respective business, but perhaps there is lack of clarity over how the process will play out, as well as a fear of fighting a government agency armed with seemingly legions of trained professionals and a legal system tilted against them.

Perception is probably not reality. In this episode, Steven and Eric talk to Todd Jones, shedding some light on how the process works and how investors can contest the assessment. Todd helps guide us through the sometimes mysterious ways of how property assessors determine value of your real estate and subsequently, the taxes you pay.

Todd Jones is an MAI appraiser and President of the Florida Association of Property Tax Professionals

Todd’s position as an appraiser and Tax Professional allows him to look at a many types of deals all across the State. As a bonus, he talks about an area of investment that he sees as one of the hottest in Florida.

Quotables -
“In Florida, the Statutes require that that assessors extract the costs to the buyer and the costs to the seller from the sales price.” …approximately 15%